“For every $100 spent at a local store, approximately $48 stays in the community … If you spend that on a chain store, about $14 stays in the community … That’s a huge difference,” said Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy on Tuesday as he launched a “Shop local” campaign.
Berne Supervisor Sean Lyons announced in a letter posted on the town’s website that, following receipt of the second-quarter sales tax revenues, the town will be able to cover coronavirus losses without sacrificing personnel or town services. Lyons told The Enterprise this week that “the budget cuts I am proposing will give the town another good starting point in 2021.”
On Monday, the governor issued an executive order to ease mail-in voting, and the state’s Office for the Aging encouraged older New Yorkers, of which there are 4.3 million, to get current with all recommended immunizations.
While the news, statewide and locally, on controlling the spread of coronavirus continues to be good, the fiscal news — a report on state tax receipts shows a 10-percent decline — continues to be bleak.
The Westerlo Town Board has extended the town’s solar and wind energy moratorium for one year, dashing the hopes of a solar developer that was planning to build on a Westerlo property.
Property owners in town have filed 32 lawsuits against Guilderland, seeking to have a collective $378 million cut from the current assessed values of their properties.
A letter to the Enterprise editor this week urges local governments to adopt resolutions that call for New York State to be split into three autonomous regions, effectively separating the upstate region from New York City. Bills introduced by New York State Assemblyman David DiPietro and New York State Senator Robert Ortt last year attempt to formalize the idea, which is derived from a decades-old push to make the New York City region its own state.
Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy cited statistics on two leading underlying health issues of New Yorkers who had died from COVID-19: 13,000 with hypertension and 9,000 with diabetes. Regular physical activity, McCoy said, could improve or prevent these conditions.
Two more states — Alaska and Delaware — meet the metrics to qualify for the travel advisory requiring people traveling from the listed states, all of which have significant community spread, to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in New York.
